


the end of all things

by 121215_04012016



Category: Figure Skating RPF
Genre: Fluff, M/M, slight miscommunication
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-24
Updated: 2018-02-24
Packaged: 2019-03-23 09:03:15
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,301
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13784190
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/121215_04012016/pseuds/121215_04012016
Summary: ‘Of course you can do it without me,’ Javier wants to say to him. ‘You’re Yuzuru Hanyu, is there anything you can’t do?’Javier arrives back in Gangneung for the gala after a week spent in Madrid. He and Yuzuru need to figure out where they go from here.





	the end of all things

**Author's Note:**

  * For [tripletriple](https://archiveofourown.org/users/tripletriple/gifts).



> this is just 2000 words of tooth-rotting nonsense, tbh. javi and yuzu got me in a rut this week as they always do when they do anything at all so i needed to write something to get the absolute trainwreck of ‘this can’t be over’ feelings out of me. it's pretty short and i can’t really attest to the quality of this piece as i only read it over as i was writing it and once when it was done, but i wanted to get it finished and published before the gala because i truly feel like this is the End of an Era. that being said, i might come back to this later and edit it some when i can think clearly again, but for now it’s just something sweet that i kind of needed right now and i hope that maybe someone else can find some joy in it too. 
> 
> dedicated to my pal @140503 for all the wonderful fic she’s written me in the past and continues to write, and for sticking with me through this crazy journey called the FS fandom. couldn’t do this without you dude

Javier arrives back in Seoul on Friday morning, jet lagged and sluggish. He hasn’t slept much in the past few days; his trip to Madrid turned out to be a little more active than he anticipated. The crowd at the airport was unexpected - the requests for interviews less so, but he took it all in stride, even if it meant less time with his family. He got to show his parents and his sister the medal, and place it around their necks. They hugged and kissed him, and he hugged and kissed them back. He knows they would have reacted the same even if he had come home empty handed - _again_ \- but Javier truly felt that in that moment, everything he went through to get to this point had been worth it. Living halfway across the world for nine years. The wins. The losses. Putting up with Morozov. All worth it. 

And now his time has come to an end. He’s played this game for a long, long time. He has the scars and the busted up knees to show for it. His body couldn’t take it anymore, and he had long come to terms with that. 

He’s going to miss competing, but he can’t go on like this for much longer. He knows it. Brian and Tracy know it. The media know it. His fans know it. Hell, even Yuzuru would admit it if he was forced to. 

‘I can’t do it without you’. Those words have been playing on a loop in his mind since they left Yuzuru’s mouth, distorted by quiet, sobbing breaths. Yuzuru’s grip on his shoulder. His arm around Yuzuru’s waist and the smell of tears mixed with sweat. He couldn’t think of anything else on the long trip to Madrid, during the interviews he gave, the pictures he posed for and the hands he shook, or during the flight back to Seoul. And now here he is, sitting alone on a bus to Gangneung, watching the scenery pass by, and all he can think of is Yuzuru. 

‘Of course you can do it without me,’ Javier wants to say to him. ‘You’re Yuzuru Hanyu, is there anything you can’t do?’ But Javier knows how Yuzuru would respond to that - not well - and he knows that if their roles were reversed, Javier probably wouldn’t be so accommodating either. 

They need to talk, is the thing. Alone. Without cameras in their faces and ISU officials in stuffy suits and reporters lurking around every corner. Javier ends up renting a room at a hotel where a lot of the athlete’s families are staying - he and Yuzuru need a place that’s more private than the village. 

After he arrives in Gangneung and checks into his hotel, he sends Yuzuru a text with his room number and lets him know he can pick up a key at the front desk. Then he throws himself face first onto the king-size bed in the middle of the room and promptly passes out.

A few hours later, he wakes to the feeling of his shoes being pulled off. “Mm, Yuzu?” he mumbles, unwilling to move his face from the overstuffed, feather-down pillow it’s currently buried in. 

A lone finger pokes him in his side. “Who else would it be, hm? Is there something you’re not telling me?” Yuzuru’s voice is teasingly threatening, but Javier knows there’s a real edge that lurks underneath that lightheartedness. 

“Thought maybe you were Brian coming to murder me for leaving him alone with you and three crazy kids.” 

Yuzuru gently whacks him on the thigh with his own sneaker. “If I were Brian, I would be coming to murder you for falling asleep with your shoes on and in clothes you’ve been wearing for at least twelve hours.” 

Javier rolls over in bed just slightly so he can reach back and grab Yuzuru’s hand. He’s too far from him, though, so Javier makes a grabbing motion in his direction. “But you’re doing that right now.” 

Yuzuru smiles, one of those smiles that are so bright Javier thinks it might blind him, and he lets the sneaker drop to the floor and climbs onto the bed. “I’m too lazy to murder you. What would I do with the body?” 

Javier wraps his arms around him. “Bury me in a mountain of Poohs?” 

Yuzuru’s expression quickly turns to one of mortification at the mere suggestion. “Javi!” 

He can’t help but laugh at Yuzuru’s reaction. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry - but it would be funny, right?” 

“No,” Yuzuru grumbles, and Javier counts himself lucky that he isn’t holding that sneaker anymore. He sighs and lets his head rest against Javier’s chest. “So crude, Javi.” 

“You were the one joking about murdering me, querido.”

“Just joking,” Yuzuru insists. “And you brought it up first.” He’s still in his training clothes, Javier realizes, his leggings and his black shirt, but he’s already taken off his Team Japan jacket. He thinks, for what must be the thousandth time, just how much form fitting clothes flatter his lover, and rests one of his hands on the curve of Yuzuru’s waist.

Javier gently kisses the top of his head in response, too tired and weary from travel and the events of the past week to keep up their playful argument. “I missed you,” he says, because it’s true, and because he doesn’t want Yuzuru to have to be the first one to say it. 

He can’t see Yuzuru’s face too well from this angle, but he hears him sigh, and Javier wonders if maybe that was the wrong thing to say. Maybe their emotions are still too fresh. Selfishly, he doesn’t want Yuzuru to cry; he’s never been able to handle it well. But then Yuzuru starts to move, and suddenly, those big brown eyes are staring up at him, free of tears. “I missed you too. I didn’t know what to do without you.” His fingers start tracing lines up and down Javier’s bicep. “At the gala practice - we had fun. Me, Misha, and Shoma, and everyone else, of course. But without you, there was something missing. And we’ve been apart before, I know, but back then I knew you were always going to come back. There was always going to be another competition. This time I didn’t have that.” His fingers stop moving, and he falls quiet for a moment. “You weren’t even gone for a week and I was already moping. How am I going to handle the rest of forever?” 

‘You won’t be competing forever,’ Javier thinks of saying at first, but he realizes that won’t help the situation. “You know I’ll come and visit,” he says instead. “To Toronto or Sendai or wherever else you are. And you know I would never give up ice shows, right? This isn’t the end, Yuzu.” Even as the words leave his mouth, he knows that isn’t entirely the truth. Nothing will ever be the same again, and there won’t be anymore competitions. No more medals, no more trading places at the tops of podiums, no more early morning training sessions at the Cricket Club, no more harassing Brian until he gets fed up with them and makes them do fifty backwards crossovers as revenge. 

“It isn’t the end, but that doesn’t mean you’re not leaving me.” 

All of a sudden, Javier feels sick. The sensation is similar to how he felt trying to skate with the stomach flu in China last year, but worse somehow. “You know that isn’t fair to me, querido.” Even though, in the end, he knows Yuzuru is right. But he also knows that it’s time for him to step back, to make way for the next generation of skaters and let the sport grow like it deserves. Just like Yuzuru, he loves the ice too much to do a disservice to it. 

Another beat of silence. “I know,” Yuzuru admits, “I’m sorry.” His voice is so quiet it’s nearly a whisper, barely audible over the hum of the heater in the hotel room. “But I can’t help how I feel, Javi. I’m losing you, and you can’t just expect me to be alright with it. And I know you’re hurting, too.” 

“I am - I am hurting.” He expected to feel like this, but the real experience was something different entirely. “You’re right. But you’re not losing me.” Javier moves his hand from Yuzuru’s waist to run his fingers through his hair in an attempt to calm him. His stomach is still in knots, but his mind thinks back to something that he thought of in December when he was visiting his family for Christmas, an idea that’s been rattling around in his brain that he couldn’t seem to get rid of. “You should come home with me,” he says before he can stop himself. “To Madrid. For the summer. You need to - your ankle needs to heal. I know you were planning on going back to Japan with your mom, but you need somewhere quiet where you can rest. I don’t think - I don’t think Sendai would really be that place, at least not right now. You couldn’t go anywhere or do anything without reporters following you, and that wouldn’t happen in Spain, at least not like it would in Japan. Besides, I know you, and if you’re in Sendai you’ll be tempted to train before your ankle is fully healed. I have my apartment and everything set up, Effie is already there, it’ll be just like it always was, except we really will be alone this time, you can have me all to yourself for as long as you want.” He knows he’s rambling, his accent getting thicker and thicker as his words being to become one big blur, but he can’t seem to stop now that he’s started after he spent so many months keeping this to himself, trying to stay quiet because he didn’t want Yuzuru to think he was selfish for wanting him all to himself. “And I already know the schedule for your painkillers. Someone needs to remind you to take them, after all, and - ” 

“Javi,” Yuzuru says forcefully, his voice watery and emotional, cutting off his tirade and looking him dead in the eyes. The tears have finally started, and that sick feeling in his stomach amplifies by about a thousand, and he’s going to start apologizing when he realizes that Yuzuru is smiling. “If you keep talking that fast, I think your head might explode.” Carefully, Yuzuru lifts his head off of Javier’s chest so he can press a gentle kiss to the side of his mouth. “I want that,” he murmurs, “I want it to be just you and me and Effie, I want to wake up to you cooking breakfast and singing horribly off-key in Spanish, and I want to fall asleep together on the couch watching football, and I want to spend time with your family, even if I can’t understand anything they’re saying, and I want you all to myself, just like you promised, for as long as possible.” 

“I thought that you would say no,” Javier confesses, his voice breaking as he speaks, and he realizes now that he’s crying, too. 

Yuzuru laughs in disbelief, and their tears mix together as he kisses him again, more aggressive this time, and that’s the Yuzuru that Javier wants to see, mischievous and full of life. “Why would I say no? Javi, I didn’t think - I didn’t know if I would fit into that part of your life. We never made any plans, and part of that is my fault. I never wanted to talk about you leaving, because that made it real. But you wanted to move on from skating, and I thought it might make sense that you would want to move on from me too.” 

Javier feels his heart break and mend itself back together in his chest in a span of ten seconds, and he can’t keep himself from pulling Yuzuru into yet another kiss. “Of course, how could I be so silly? Clearly I can do better than a _two-time Olympic champion_. You crazy man, of course I still want you in my life.” He hates that he didn’t make sure Yuzuru knew that, and he promises himself there and then that there won’t be anymore miscommunications like that between them going forward. 

Yuzuru starts giggling and can’t seem to stop. “I dunno, Javi, you’re an Olympic medalist now too. I saw the video of all those girls who came to meet you at the airport. Maybe I should be worried?” 

Javier pinches him lightly on his thigh in retribution and Yuzuru yelps but still doesn’t stop giggling. “I’ve had to put up with your fangirls for years, you can put up with mine for three months until they get bored of me and go back to obsessing over football players.” 

Yuzuru’s giggling subsides, but he’s still smiling. “Fine then, more for me. All to myself, you said, remember?” 

“Of course. We just have to get through the gala, and then I’m all yours.” 

For the first time in his life, Javier thinks Yuzuru actually looks upset at the prospect of a gala. “Fine. At least I get to see Super Javi one last time.” 

Javier grins and makes an attempt at waggling his eyebrows. “ _You_ can see Super Javi whenever you want.” 

Yuzuru grimaces. “I love you, but please never do that again.” 

Javier laughs until he’s struggling for breath. He can’t remember ever feeling happier than he is in this moment, with Yuzuru laying on top of him and tear tracks on their faces, after they both just made history. “I love you too, Yuzuru. So, so much. Te amo, mi querido, te amo.”

**Author's Note:**

> querido, for anyone who doesn't know, is spanish for 'dear', and the spanish at the end translates to 'i love you, my dear, i love you'. if i got any spelling or grammar or syntax wrong and someone who knows more spanish than me (which i suppose would be most people in the world) would be inclined to let me know, i would very much appreciate that.


End file.
